MEP-003A Will Not Start - Need Mechanic- Chicago Area

[jjayala]

the only things you can remove to let fuel or air out of the cylinders is the injectors or the glow plugs . the glow plugs will come out hard or possabilly break off in the head not good. so if i had to choose i would remove the injectors. either is a bad thing on these sets and could have caused real damage. also the throttle wired wide open is also not good.

UPDATE: 4:08 P 4/7/12

Yesterday I had a mechanic come over to check the unit and see if he could unlock the hydrolock or check the problem. The glow plugs looked too dangerous to remove so we removed the injectors one by one. The tops of the cylinder were visiblee with a little light and they were dry and not locked with any fuel or water. We tried to crank again with a racket on the blower fan and it was hard as before.

Case Close, Engine Seized. Seems all the ether he used cause some damage, which is not a quick fix.

-------

I called up the place I bought it from to see if they had another unit to sell me. They offered up a 24 hour MEP-003A with 24 hour but with a "flacky" voltage regulator cube (tall cube where leads come out of) for about $1,500. After speeding about a Grand on my existing unit with no solution, I jumped on this unit and got it hooked up. I'll keep the other unit for parts or part it out.

I have a problem with the other unit now, it won't maintain 60 Hz. When I connect a good load above 5KW, the units struggles to maintain speed and the Hz drops way below the scale and voltage drops from about !20VAC to about 90 VAC. If I tap or tap the governor, it sometimes comes back but it does not always adjust correctly when loads are turned on an off.

I'm researching in the TM and forum post but does anyone have a quick fix? Our business is down as a result of this problem..

 

[jjayala]

Where are you located near chicago I am 30 miles west and have a MEP 003 here I got running I may be able to help out.

Ranchhopper,

I'm located in Chicago, IL: Near North Ave & Western. I have the unit on a trailer and could bring by after the holiday if you have some experience with adjust the governor. Having a hard time maintaining speed under varying loads.

 

[Speddmon]

Sorry to hear you had to give up on the old one. But from what you describe on the new one it's just a simple governor adjustment. I don't have the TM's in front of me right now to tell you where the adjustment procedure is located. But, it has been covered here on SS before and a little searching should bring it right up. It's a very easy thing to do

 

[jjayala]

Injector Problem? .... or still Governor issue?

Sorry to hear you had to give up on the old one. But from what you describe on the new one it's just a simple governor adjustment. I don't have the TM's in front of me right now to tell you where the adjustment procedure is located. But, it has been covered here on SS before and a little searching should bring it right up. It's a very easy thing to do

Speedmon,

Using the TM and some help I found on other postings/threads, armed with a Fluke Digital Multi Meter, I adjusted every which way on the rachet and the linkage for the governor. I did not adjust my max and min speed as this seem to work okay, so I focused on the governor adjustment and linkage. Under no load, I adjusted my throttle speed to ~62.00 Hz and here's what I did and findings:

• I disconnected the fuel line right after the three fuel filters. Fuel came out at a steady rate when set to prime.
• I disconnected the fuel return going back to the tank and the rate seems a little slower than what's going into the injector pump, is this normal? Does this mean there is a slight clog in the injector pump?
• I adjustedd the racket counter-clockwise as specified in the TM over and over again and test with and with out load --- With load and using a digital multimeter, unit drops way to about 45-50 Hz under my normal working load, which is about 75%.
• I adjusted the racket sensitivyt back and forth over and over again, going from min to maximum and unit still does not recover speed after load adjustment.
• I then adjusted the linkage near the plastic socket about two turns in to cause more "pull" on the injector pump and tried the above again and again and it made no difference. --- I noticed that the linkage and governor, when under load, is pulling in or up, the injector pump to the max. So there's no more adjustment I can do here or get added control or range.
• Using a long flat head screw driver, when under load, I noticed that the injector control is at the max. Lightly pushing up with a screwdriver does not give me more speed or fuel. If I play around with it and push up and down (engine revs up and down) it will give me the proper speed and settle to the correct speed. Any change in load and then a re-load, causes the big drop in RPM's again.

I'm pretty confident that the governor is not the problem and I have an injector problem. Do you agree based on what I've described above?

... could a slightly clogged injector or gummed up pump cause the problem? -- as I mentioned in the beginning, return flow rate seems to be about 30% less on the turn (hard to measure, just visual observation). Also when I manual play with the throttle on the injector pump, it gets the correct speed, but this takes several tugs and swings up and down.

I'm about to swap out injectors with my seized up unit but I wanted to share my updated today before doing this.

Or does my max speed need to be a lot higher, but I don't think so because I should have been able to confirm this by manually moving the throttle when under load.

I live in a City building and have both units on trailers in my alley. If anyone can help, I'm standing by right now waiting for some help. Also have the TM's open and printer ready waiting for some feedback. Quick before the City tows my units away!

Juan
(312) 622-7520

 

[jjayala]

***<PROBLEM SOLVED!!! --- UPDATE 10:42 PM 4/8/2012>***

Well the misses and the family are all ticked off because I missed Easter Dinner, but I got it working! Here's what I found:

I was studying and taking notes from the IP sections of the TM (longest section if you ask me) before removing to swap or possibly fix the IP. While doing this I noticed a small part in figures; Figure 7-33 & 7-34 , show a "Control Unit Retaining Plate and Stop Assembly". This is basically a set screw and that sets the maximum throttle by limiting the travel of the throttle control control unit assembly. When I first glanced at this section earlier in the day, I clearly noted the warning not to adjust this as it was factory set, so I paid little attention to it while adjusting the governor. Something bugged me about the Figure/Drawing and a quick run outside confirmed it! ... the screw that holds the bracket in place to the housing of the IP was about half way out, prevent the "control unit assembly" from traveling to it's maximum positions! It was able to travel far enough when under no load or light loads, but not enough when under heavy loads! This is why the governor made no difference, it was trying but the throttle would not move pass this screw and was getting stuck there. I had to tighten it using some needle nose pliers as there is no way to get in without removing the IP, but I got it pretty tight. I re-installed the Stop Solenoid and governor and test fired the unit and all worked correctly! I have a little hunting from all the prior adjustments I made to the governor but it's only swinging about 4-5 Hz max, which is okay by me.

CASE CLOSED! --- Not Able to Maintain Speed Hz or RPM - Screw on Trottle Stop Bracket

Special thanks to Coyote62 & Speddom for all the help and phone calls.


____

One last thing, this newer set sounds a heck of a lot quieter than our first unit. Strangely after running it for about 2 hours, the unit got quieter and less nosier. Is this normal? This unit only has about 25 hours, (now 28 , but it's a very noticeable sound difference and the few hours we ran today, it was louder for the first 1.5 hours than afterwards. Perhaps I'm a little paranoid from all the issues but just want to make sure.

 

[rosco]

Congratulations on the "fix". I have learned that the best thing one can do is to work on your own equipment, yourself. Its not long, with the TM's and some guidence from the "Aces" on here, that you can adequately maintain your own equipment. The hourly price that you paid the "diesel mechainc" was far from the real cost!

 

[Speddmon]

That's FANTASTIC news. Congratulations on finding and fixing the problem. I know it was probably a bit frustrating and time consuming, but the satisfaction of working on and fixing your own problems is worth it. Not to mention all of the valuable learning you have achieved throughout this process. That in my opinion is priceless. Because sometime when a need arises and you have to use that generator and something comes up, no matter how minor, you'll have the knowledge to fix it yourself. Imagine you're in the middle of a weeklong power failure and something like that governor issue comes up. Rather than being dead in the water until you can find someone who MIGHT be able to work on it for you, you can now go out and analyze, find and solve the problem and be back up and running again.

Again GREAT work.

 

[gimpyrobb]

Glad you got her going. Its always nice to see the problem, fix it, and have things work correctly afterward.

 

[Mike929]

congratulations on the fix!